Double Talk (17 page)

He flicked his monogrammed Zippo and the room filled with the smell of Christmas trees. He took a few draws and passed the joint to Bill who made loud whooshing and vacuuming noises, as seemed to be the custom among North Americans, maybe since the film
Easy Rider
. The smoke got in his eyes and made them bloodshot immediately.

“Fuck! Has anyone got any Visine? I can't show up on the front desk looking like a frog-eyed freak.” He pronounced “freak” as “frik.”

“Bill. Cool it, man. It's hours before you have to be there,” said Devlin.

Bill shot Devlin another look, then turned to Keppie. “You're still hanging out with this granola nut job, Kep?” Everyone laughed, even Devlin.

“Happy hay,” said Keppie.

“Keppie? Hey, Keppie, remember the day we got a head full of steam out behind Brother Rice and then got called on to serve High Mass up at the Basilica?” Bill's foot was tapping nervously. News that they had been dope smokers as far back as high school filled me with wonder. There had been no dope in Bridgetown Secondary School.

Keppie, entertaining the memory, brightened for a moment, then decided not to fall into the old rhythm with Bill. “Not that one again, Bill. Ancient history, man.”

Bill looked from Devlin to Nancy as if expecting one of them to jump in where Keppie had not. Neither one made a move. Stonewalled, Bill shrugged his shoulders and glanced sheepishly at me.

As the second of the two joints made its last round, I felt the atmosphere in the room change. What a few minutes earlier had seemed like an ordinary basement, barely furnished — workbench and some tools in one corner, a deep sink and a washer and dryer in the other — began to feel like some kind of otherworldly waiting room. The mood was suddenly one of expectation. Above us, I could hear the sounds of the party: the rhythmic thump of the music competing with conversation and occasionally with an exalted burst of laughter. Below, I could feel the dreadful coldness of the earth beginning to seep through the floor into my stocking feet.

Giggles spontaneously erupted, first from Nancy and then from Keppie. I felt anxiety begin to well up from my gut, as I often did when a new high began to kick in. There was always a period of being lost between worlds. I took several deep breaths, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and waited for my heart rate to slow down. Bill began to giggle, too, though I noticed he kept glancing nervously from face to face as if trying to read from people's expressions whether they were laughing at him or at something else.

I felt my anxiety begin to leak away. I began to feel a giddy delight in the world, a world in which my every thought had the weight of insight and all my senses sprouted an extra level of perception. The ordinary General Electric clothes dryer appeared to hover just above the concrete floor. Observing it, I had the uncanny impression it contained some great secret, one that I needed only lift the lid to discover. I had my first body rush then, and it came with the mental image of a weather system, a vortex of cloud dissipating as I rocketed through it into the clear blue.

It was also at that moment that a strange sound, a kind of trapped involuntary whine, began to issue from Bill Cheeseman's throat. I turned to look at him just as he snapped upright on his milk crate. It was like the scene in
The Exorcist
when the demon passed from the body of the young girl into Father Karras — in an instant, all the anxiety in the room seemed to flow into Bill Cheeseman. His eyes went wild, the whites visible above and below his irises. He was suddenly up on his feet and waving his hands around, freaking: “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, b'ys! I hope you're not putting acid in them joints. The last thing I wants is to end up in the cop shop telling some officer to stick it.”

In between trips to the basement and jokes about Bill's abrupt exit, we drank beer and sipped from a bottle of peach schnapps. Groups formed and drifted apart and reformed as people wandered from kitchen to living room to dining room. At one stage, I was sitting at the mahogany dinner table, listening to Devlin rant about Ronald Reagan, the American Industrial Complex, Coca-Cola, the Dole Fruit Company, the Contras and General Pinochet, when an old woman appeared at my side. Before I had time to react, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek: “It's so good to see you. We haven't seen you in such a long time.”

Keppie — who had been sitting next to Devlin, winking and making wisecracks: “There's no conspiracy. Your head's rotted out from all that turnip juice and tofu” — suddenly got serious. “Mom,” he said. “It's all right, Mom. This is Brian, a new friend of mine.”

I smiled up at her. She looked puzzled.

“Oh, I'm sorry, my love. I thought you were somebody else.”

Keppie linked her arm and walked her to the bottom of the stairs where they were met by an older, bald man — his father, I guessed. I looked at Devlin, who shrugged. Until that second I had no idea that Keppie's parents were in the house. I couldn't have imagined throwing a party while my parents were home. Newfoundland was a different world.

“Mom gets a bit confused sometimes,” Keppie told us when he returned. “She thought you were my buddy, Frank.”

Later, after what seemed like hours of eye-games with Nancy and Violet, I at last found myself sandwiched between the two of them on the dusty-rose couch. An interviewing tag-team, they took turns asking me questions, while I shielded my eyes from the glare of overhead track lighting. They wanted to know what Ireland was like, and I responded by telling them that it was a lot like Newfoundland. In only a few short months, I had learned that this was the answer most Newfoundlanders wanted to hear. To give any other answer was to provoke consternation, even anger.

In answer to what had brought me to their rocky shores, I told them I wanted to be a marine biologist. I said it was my plan to study whales and that I was a passionate admirer of Greenpeace, a confession which seemed to score points with Violet, but which Nancy seemed to find hilarious.

Replying to questions about my living situation, I told them about Wallace and Geoff. They thought it was cool that I was living with two gay men. And suddenly it was cool.

When it was Violet's turn to answer my questions, she told me that she was from Vancouver Island, and that she had come down to Newfoundland to do a teaching degree, but was getting more interested in taking a degree in women's studies. “But you'll have to get that awful haircut,” I said, chancing that I wouldn't offend her. I didn't. She actually laughed. I had never thought of myself as being funny. Encouraged, I tried out another joke on the only occasion I found myself alone with her that evening — an accidental meeting outside the bathroom door: “How do you titillate an ocelot?”

“How do you titillate an ocelot?” she repeated, laying her hand on my arm, her eyes sparkling.

“You oscillate its tits a lot.”

When she laughed she opened her mouth so wide that I could see the little thingy at the back of her throat. Our eyes locked for a few moments — the possibility of tonsil hockey presented, then retreated. Afterwards, I reminded myself that her touching my arm meant nothing — North American girls were outgoing. After all, she touched Nancy as well; in fact, they spent half the evening sitting in each other's laps.

Nancy, as it turned out, was harder to read, despite giving the appearance of being wide, wide open. She told me that she was from Patrick's Cove and that her only dream in life was to get herself a job with the federal government, ideally with time off in the summer for the speedboat fishery. She was flirtatious, and yet I knew immediately that I wasn't interested in her. Her hairy legs really turned me off, and she was doughy looking.

“You should see her naked,” Keppie said to me, at another get-together several months later, “she's like a big touton.”

At some point in the evening I must have made a decision: Nancy was a definite no, while Violet was a definite maybe.

But then the night took a turn for the worse. It was shortly before midnight and the party had begun to wind down. Violet and Nancy had just left. “We're heading back to Violet's residence room to do unspeakable things to each other,” said Nancy.

“I wants pictures,” said Keppie.

We were down to our last six-pack and the munchies had set in. “My son,” said Devlin, suddenly sounding more Newfoundland than he had sounded all evening, “I'd eat the arse of a child through a chair.”

“I'd eat the left leg of the lamb of God,” said Keppie, not to be outdone.

We raided the fridge. It was almost empty.

“Grocery day tomorrow,” said Keppie, rummaging in the freezer. “Aha, what have we here?” He wrestled a large box from under bags of frozen peas and corn. “McCain's Coconut Cream Pie.”

Devlin licked his lips. “I haven't had one of those since grade six.”

“It has to thaw out first,” said Keppie, shucking it out of its cardboard sleeve and leaving the white pie in the middle of the table.

Just then the front door swung in and Bill Cheeseman stumbled into the hall, his face red from the cold. He was carrying two six-packs. He didn't take off his boots; instead he marched straight into the kitchen, leaving a trail of footprints behind him.

“Bill, b'y, I thought you were going to work?” said Devlin.

“I was on my way. I got the bus to the mall and I was halfway up Kenmount Road when I decided, Fuck it, why should I be at work when everyone else is partying? The manager is a goddamn son of a bitch, anyway. Then, on my way back, I ran into Ronnie — you remember Ronnie with the ferret — and we decided to go for a game of pool.”

“Right on, Bill, sticking it to the man!” said Devlin, raising his hand for a high-five.

Keppie was less enthusiastic. “Things were just winding down.”

“Ah, come on, Keppie, b'y. There's always time for a few more.”

Keppie shifted uneasily in his seat. Devlin gave me a sly wink, as if to say: You're about to see something now.

Bill ripped open one of the boxes of Blue Star and handed beers to Keppie and Devlin. He took one out for himself. Then, reaching in a third time, he grabbed one of the stubby bottles by the neck and, grinning, jabbed it towards me. “You wants one, too, I suppose.”

The bottle seemed to come at me in slow motion. In fact, I was experiencing everything as if in slow motion. I had the feeling that I knew what Bill Cheeseman was going to do even before he did it. I cocked an eyebrow. “Well, when you ask so nicely.”

Keppie looked a little embarrassed. Devlin seemed to be enjoying the prospect of a Bill Cheeseman encore.

“You want one or not, Ireland?”

“Lay it on me, padner.”

“You seems to think you're some smart … What's your name again?”

“Brian.”

“Bri-onn.”

I wasn't sure if he pronounced my name that way because of his accent or because he was drunk or because he was trying to take the piss.

“Chill out, Bill, fuck's sake,” said Keppie.

Bill shrugged, and sat down.

They talked about hockey. Montreal had beaten Toronto earlier that night. Bill thought Toronto still had a chance of reaching the playoffs and began to list the strengths and weaknesses of the various players. He talked non-stop for what felt like half an hour, stopping only long enough to open more beer. He drank three bottles in the time it took me to drink one. When he turned his attention to me again his eyes were stone cold. “The Habs versus the Leafs,” he said. “It don't get much better than that.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Want another beer?”

“No thanks.”

“Why not? My beer not good enough?”

“I've had enough.”

“You've had enough? What kind of Irishman are you?”

I debated whether I should explain myself and decided not to.

“Come to think of it, Brian, your accent don't sound right to me. I've met plenty of people from Ireland and yours don't seem right.”

I pulled a packet of cigarettes from my pocket and lit one.

“What's wrong, b'y? Cat got your tongue?”

“For the love of God, Bill, give it up or I'm going to boot your arse out on the street,” said Keppie.

“Okay. Okay, my old buddy. Just asking a question. Just asking a question. No need to get yourself in a knot.”

“So who are ya for then, Ireland — the Habs or the Leafs?”

“I don't know.”

Bill shrugged his shoulders. “You're some hard to get along with.” Both Keppie and Devlin looked at me.

“The Leaves.”

“The wha?”

“The Leaves.”

Bill slapped his knee and then he slapped the table so hard all the empty beer bottles hopped into the air. And all the while he laughed he gave the sly eye to Keppie and Devlin, who were trying hard not to laugh along with him.

“The Leaves! Isn't that the best ever? The Toronto Maple Leaves!”

What had I said that was so funny to them?